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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
A legal dispute between online aquatic plant enthusiasts and a pet supply store illustrates the perils of casual opining on the Web.
Apr 4, 2002 | This is a legal thriller set in a fishbowl.
It's the story of a multi-million dollar lawsuit that has transformed a sleepy online community of aquatic plant gardeners into a hotbed of accusations of libel, conspiracy, defamation, computer hacking, infringement on freedom of speech and even death threats.
The plaintiff in the case of Robert Novak vs. APD List Members, filed last May in a federal court in New York, seeks damages of more than $15 million. The FBI has even been notified, although there is no public evidence to date that it is conducting an investigation.
"I've been an attorney for over 20 years, and I have rarely seen anything that's as frivolous as this is," says John Benn, a lawyer and aquarist in Sheffield, Ala., who collects monies for the legal defense of the defendants named in the case. So far, says Benn, the defense fund has raised more than $14,000 from online sympathizers around the globe.
But now the defense fund itself has become a legal target -- and that raises questions of just what kind of comments are protected speech on the Internet, and how far a company can go in attempting to guard its trademarks. For Benn, the lawsuit may be frivolous, aimed at stifling criticism, but for Robert Novak, the founder and owner of PetsWarehouse.com, the reputation of a company is at stake.
The aquatic plant spat may be just another online brush fire, but the issues at the heart of the struggle reach far. The Internet makes it easy to express your opinion; anyone who's ever been caught in the cross fire of an all-out flame war knows that. But does it make it too easy? And when litigation follows flaming words, how far will an online community go to fight back?
The hot water started with a simple post to an Internet mailing list frequented by people whose idea of a good time is growing plants underwater.
The chatter on the Aquatic Plant Digest (APD) mailing list typically runs to tame fare like algae, platyphylla, nematodes, snails and African frogs. But in typical online forum fashion, the aquarists also swap information about their experiences with the companies from which they've bought plants or supplies.
On May 15, 2001, according to court documents, Dan Resler, a computer scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, posted a message that made a blunt recommendation: "Thinking of buying plants from Pet Warehouse? Don't." He went on to detail his gripes about the company's customer service, based on what he said was a delayed shipment of plants he'd ordered.
Resler -- apparently realizing he'd left out an "s" in his original post -- later followed up with this amendment: "to clarify: Pet Warehouse OK, Pets Warehouse NOT."
In classic Net slambook fashion, other members of the list responded to Resler's messages by sharing their own experiences with Pets Warehouse. One post on May 22, 2001, as recorded in court documents, quotes Sean Carney of Weslaco, Texas, sloganeering: "Remember petSWEARhouse, buy their plants and you'll be swearing!"
